We Didn't See it Coming (But He Did)
by ErinisMagic
Summary: Tony hasn't been himself for quite some time. If only someone had noticed. *rated M for suicide
1. Chapter 1

_Now_

Tony sat alone in the dark, staring down at the object he held in his hands. Was he absolutely sure about this? _Yes, _a little voice in his mind answered, _we both saw this coming. After what they did to you, there was no other way it could end. It's okay, you want this, you want this... _

The worst part was, the voice was right.

He wanted this.

_Before_

He didn't know how it happened, or when it happened, but somewhere in the back of his mind, a little voice had told him that it would. _Why would anyone want to be friends with _you?!, it spat. Tony hadn't listened to that little voice since he was in his teens, so he did what he always did: drown it out with booze.

When Tony had first met the team, he had been very hopeful. He was part of a _team, _now, and didn't team members almost always end up being really close; like a family? They didn't seem to be getting along, though. Always fighting, not trusting. Some team they were.

They came together in the end. Tony hated to prove Fury right, but in this one case, he was glad he was. The Avengers were a success. Maybe it had taken a battle to get them to work right, but they had done it. The day was saved, and everyone lived. Well, everyone on the team, which was actually very lucky, because Tony almost didn't make it back. _It would have been better if you hadn't, _the voice whispered. _Safe and oblivious in the endlessness of space. _

So, the day was saved and all that was left now was the clean-up. His new team looked as if they were all going to go their separate ways, and Tony was desperate for that not to happen. So, he offered up his place to serve as HQ. He had enough rooms for everyone. They could all stay together, they could all stay friends. It had been far too long since Tony had had friends.

He pushed and pushed and pushed, but eventually got everyone to agree to stay. Even Bruce, who had been on the verge of disappearing again into some third-world country. It was Avengers Tower, now. The home of the "Earth's Mightiest Heroes", and for the first time in a long while, Tony was happy. He had Pepper as his girlfriend, Rhodey as his best friend, and the Avengers as his family. Everything was good.

Then, about a year or two later, it all began to go wrong. The team had been out on another one of their missions, and Tony had nearly gotten himself hurt. He was fine, but Pepper wasn't. When they got back to the tower, he had found her with all of her bags packed. "I can't keep doing this," she had said. "I can't relax with you always going out there," she had said. Then, Pepper left; and for the first time in those two years the team had been together, Tony turned back to the bar to drown out his sorrows.

After that, things just got worse. Fury put Rhodey, in the suit that Tony had "given" him back when he was still dying, in with the Avengers. Tony wasn't exactly sure why, but he welcomed him on. He was his best friends, after all. But then, they started calling Tony out on missions less and less. They had said that they were worried about the effect his drinking would have on his ability to preform. Before long, they stopped calling him out at all. _I told you they would never want you, _the little voice whispered. _There will always be someone better. _

It was getting harder not to listen.

Tony tried to reason that, even though he wasn't going out on missions with them, they were still his friends. Natasha and Steve asked him to spar, Clint asked him to help pull pranks, Bruce asked him to run experiments, and Thor asked him to just hang out. We're friends, he told himself, but the little voice had just laughed at that. _For now, _it hissed, the words echoing in his mind.

Tony tried to brush it off. What did it know? They were friends, and always would be. Except...

Natasha and Steve stopped asking him to spar. They sparred with Rhodey, now. "He needs to be prepared for the missions," they had said. _Excuses, _it spat.

Tony could no longer ignore it.

Clint stopped asking him to help pull pranks. "Its starting to get a little tired of it," he reasoned. _He's starting to get a little tired of _you_, _the little voice taunted.

Tony could no longer brush it off.

Thor stopped hanging out with him. He went off to visit his girlfriend. "I miss my Jane," he boomed. _He just wants to get away from you. _It was always there.

Tony was starting to think it had a seed of truth.

But Bruce? Bruce was the worst. He stopped asking him to run experiments with him. "I've just been busy with Pepper," he stated. That's right, Pepper. The two of them had started going out, and now Bruce was talking about moving in with her. _They hate you, _the little voice yelled triumphantly. _They all hate you!_

Tony believed it.

_Now_

Tony hadn't moved for the past half hour. He just sat there, consumed by the loneliness and the emptiness within him. The gun in his hands glinted in the light from his arc reactor. Tony cracked a smile, but it held nothing but pain and sorrow.

_Just like when you were younger. _The little voice was soothing, now. _Just like back then, but this time, you can do it. I know you can._

Tony stalled for a beat. Was he positive that this was what he wanted?

_Of course you want this! They won't care. They _replaced _you! Cast you out! They'll be glad you're gone. _The little voice was being nasty again, and Tony was too tired to stop it. Besides, it was true. Fury had replaced him with Rhodey. Steve and Natasha had replaced him with Rhodey. Clint had replaced him with maturity. Thor had replaced him with Jane. Rhodey had replaced him with the rest of the team. Pepper and Bruce had replaced him with each other. He didn't belong with them anymore. They wouldn't care.

The gun was loaded, ready to fire. Tony raised it to his temple, and was calmer than he thought he should be. Had JARVIS's communication system still been online, he would have called for help, but there was nothing he could do now but watch his creator and pray that he didn't pull the trigger.

He did.

_After_

The crack of the gunshot rang out through the empty tower. Everyone had gone out, had left Tony alone. They hadn't known anything like this would happen. In their minds, Tony was so full of himself, so full of life, that they didn't even think anything like this _could _happen.

No one knew how much he was hurting. Not even Clint or Natasha, and they had been trained to pick up on things like that. Neither of them would ever forgive themselves for not noticing. None of the Avengers would.

It was hours before they came home, all of them still laughing from the fun night out they had had together. They had asked Tony in passing, but he had said that he had too much work to do. Shame, Steve thought, but didn't manage to remember that Tony hadn't _really _worked on anything in months.

None of them had felt the slightest thing off when they came back into their apartments. They had decided that they were going to put on a movie, and thought that maybe Tony would join them for that. Rhodey had volunteered to ask him, so he went down to Tony's lab. Tony hadn't been in there, and that had brightened his spirits. Maybe that meant that he would hang out with them, Rhodey thought. It felt like it had been ages since he had hung out with Tony.

Since Tony hadn't been in the lab, Rhodey decided to check his bedroom. The door had been shut, so he knocked politely, calling out "Tony." There was no response, so Rhodey knocked again. Still nothing.

He pushed gingerly at the door and found it, to his surprise, unlocked, so he pushed it open further and poked his head inside his best friend's room. All of the lights were off. Was Tony really asleep this early? The coppery scent of blood went completely unnoticed.

"Tony?" Rhodey called again softly. Through the darkness, he could just make out the billionaire's shadowy silhouette stretched out on the floor. He pushed the door open all the way and walked in, crouching down at his friend's side and laying a hand on his shoulder, shaking gently. His skin was cold to the touch. "Tony?" he repeated, worried now.

He turned the genius from his side onto his back and screamed. "Tony!" But the man couldn't hear him. He would never hear again.

Tony's eyes were empty and distant, his hand still wrapped around the gun and the hole in his head still red and sticky with blood. "No, no, no, don't do this to me," Rhodey begged, but it was hopeless. There was nothing he could do.

Rhodey broke then and there, tears streaming down his face and he collapsed into his friend's chest. He couldn't even find composure enough to tell JARVIS to call the others, not that JARVIS would have been able to anyway. It was several minutes before Natasha came to find them. As stubborn as Tony was, it shouldn't take _that _long to get an answer out of him, she thought. When she came into her teammate's room, however, and saw Rhodey sobbing into his chest, she already knew what had happened.

She stood in the doorway for a moment, in complete shock, before she sprinted off back to the living room to tell the others. She had figures that Tony had taken JARVIS offline, because JARVIS would have already told them if he hadn't. The bright and cheery atmosphere of the room dimmed instantly as Natasha entered, then plummeted even further when she told them what happened.

No one else could believe it, either. They all raced to Tony's room, seeing the genius's lifeless body that Rhodey was sobbing into. Even though they all knew that this was it, they looked to Bruce with one last glimmer of hope in their eyes, but he just shook his head. There was nothing to be done.

Tony was gone.


	2. Until Next Year

The headlines of the newspapers all said the same thing: "Suicide of Tony Stark". Copies flew off the shelves, news shows wouldn't stop talking about it, magazines wouldn't leave it alone. Call after call came in for the Avengers, reporters asking for their thoughts, their feelings, their account of what had happened that night. None of them had it in them to even tell the reporters "no comment", so they left JARVIS to take the calls. He couldn't quite manage, either, letting the phone ring until the reporter got tired of waiting and just hung up.

The masses were shocked. How could this have happened to him? Surely it was some kind of mistake. He was rich! He was famous! He was a hero! He had so much to live for! None of them understood. No one did.

The funeral was as quiet as it could be. Agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. Formed a protective barrier around the old church, keeping the paparazzi from worming their way in. Every reporter filmed live from the outside, declaring "It is a sad, sad day, indeed" without even the smallest hint of true sorrow in their voice. They didn't care, they just wanted a story.

Inside the church was anyone who actually knew him. Pepper cried into Rhodey's shoulder, because Bruce couldn't handle the stress. He had turned into the Hulk, leaping away to hide in some third-world country until he was calm enough to return. Steve stood in the front, head hung low as he squeezed his eyes shut to try to keep away the teats. Thor stood next to him, strong, silent. Clint, Natasha, and Fury stood in the back, masks in place to prevent any emotion from showing.

Even if they wouldn't admit it, they all blamed themselves. Pepper thought that if she hadn't broken up with him, he would have been happier. Rhodey thought that if he hadn't lost himself to the excitement of being put on the team, he would have seen that Tony was upset. Steve thought that, as their leader, he should have been watching out for Tony. Fury thought the same thing. Bruce thought that he should have made himself more open to Tony, should have made it clear that he could talk to him about anything, while Thor thought that he should have shared with Tony his tips on calming down after the stress of battle. Clint thought that he shouldn't have stopped pranking with Tony, that maybe those pranks were what made his days bearable. Natasha thought that she should have noticed Tony's pain. She could always notice it in her enemies, pick it out and use it to her advantage, why couldn't she have noticed it with her friend?

JARVIS was the only one who knew the full story, and he was too ashamed of himself to share. Tony had built the AI when he was young, right when the first suicidal thoughts slipped through. He was so lonely, felt so ignored by his parents and peers that didn't care about him at all, just about his money, that he built himself a friend, one that would be almost as smart as he was and would always be there for him. JARVIS had taken his role very seriously, quickly cataloging which words would calm his creator when he had a bad day, would convince him to put down the gun when he had an awful one. Deep in JARVIS memories, he still had those words saved, and he cursed himself for not knowing enough to use them.

Time passed and life went on, and no one was happy. Bruce couldn't return home, couldn't face it all again, so he broke up with Pepper and quit the Avengers, permanently settling in a run-down city somewhere in Africa. Thor returned to Asgard, only returning to visit Jane every once and a while or when they had a mission. Clint and Natasha pretended that they were okay, but everyone knew that they weren't. Steve and Rhodey spent all of their time helping their new teammate, some kid who called himself Spider Man, almost to the point where it was obsessive, as they skipped meals and sleep to come up with new training exercises or gadgets that might be useful.

Without the genius at the head of the company, Stark Industries practically collapsed, struggling to get by as Hammer quickly overtook them. Pepper buried herself in the work for a while until the stress became too much. It was then that Happy came in, convinced her to let him take her out for dinner, and three years later they were happily married with a cozy little house and an adorable, but very yappy, airedale terrier puppy that always wanted to be the center of attention and chewed on the lock on the liquor cabinet. Pepper called him Tony.

Once a year, Pepper, Rhodey, and all the Avengers gathered in what was once more Stark Tower to reminisce. Sometimes one of them cooked dinner, and other times they ordered take-out, usually schwarma. This year, Pepper brought Tony and was surprised to find the puppy behaving himself for once. He didn't try to jump all over anyone or beg for food. Instead, he went around from person to person, letting the teary eyed adults pet him without a complaint. He wagged his tail as Clint told funny stories of the pranks he and Tony used to play on the others and hung his head when, in the aftermath of those stories, the rest of the group remembered that that was all they would ever be; stories and tales of amazing times that would never happen again.

As the hours passed, the group put on what used to be Tony's favorite movie, laughing to themselves as the little puppy sat right in front of the screen, watching it intently for a few minutes before heading back to the sofa and falling asleep in Pepper's lap.

No one talked for the rest of the movie, letting themselves get lost in the events, making it easier for them to pretend that there was no one missing from their group. When at last the time came for them to go, Pepper said her goodbyes, giving everyone a hug before clipping Tony's leash back onto his collar had walking into the elevator. It was only then that the dog barked, the first sound he'd made all night. Everyone startled a little, but smiled gently as the puppy said his own goodbyes.

_I'm sorry I did this to you, guys. I didn't want to make any of you sad. I guess I just couldn't see __how much you really cared for me, but I know it now. And I miss you. All of you. _If dogs could cry, a tear would have slipped from Tony's eye right about then, as the doors shut and they elevator descended back down to the ground level. _Until next year. Love, Tony._


End file.
